by Neil Spring
‘I … I don’t understand.’
‘Oh? I think you understand very well.’ His tone stung, and it took me a few seconds to realise, with some surprise, that the expression on his face wasn’t anger or even dissatisfaction but distrust. ‘I’m beginning to think that perhaps you have not been entirely honest with me, perhaps not even honest with yourself.’
‘Not this again!’ I said quickly, recalling his initial doubts about me. ‘I’m not a spy!’
‘Is it true that your father was killed in the last war and that your mother is an avid believer in the Spiritualist cause?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Is it true?’
‘Yes …’
‘Then would you care to enlighten me as to how these facts are connected with your presence here?’
A hazy memory flickered: me next to Father at home in front of his piano. That was the night he told me that very soon he would be gone. ‘Where?’ I had asked, and his answer had haunted me:
‘There is a war coming, my darling. But I will come back, I promise, and you will see me again.’
I felt my despondency rising in my throat.
‘Do you imagine, Sarah, that your being here with me is – in some small way – a means of coping with your loss?’
Was that it? I blinked away an unexpected tear. Working here at the Laboratory, on the outer limits of everyday experience, constantly probing the question of an afterlife, did not dispel my feelings of my loss, but it helped me to understand them better, to see with greater clarity why Mother had enveloped herself in these mysteries. It helped me to understand that she was mistaken and my father would never be coming back and to put right what the mediums had made wrong. Lastly – if only in a small way – it allowed me to tease myself with the very same mysteries and possibilities of hope.
Price was waiting for my answer.
‘I think you may be right,’ I said quietly. ‘I loved him so much.’
‘The memory of love is as immutable and as radiant as fire, Sarah, and it burns just as fiercely.’ They were touchingly warm words from a man whose fits of depression could leave him so cold.
He sat down again and leaned back, resting his fingertips on the edge of his desk. ‘You know, I sensed a secret within you, and secrets are always revealed eventually; like worms, they tunnel and twist their way to the surface. No matter! I feel, at least, that now I know you a little better.’
Our conversation seemed to be at an end, so I rose, but before I could leave a question occurred to me. ‘What about you, Harry?’
His expression flickered. ‘What about me?’
I had wanted to ask him many times why the need for approval burned within him so ferociously and why he had chosen the paranormal as his subject of study. I had a sense that his work in this building was fired by something deep within his troubled soul. But every time he detected signs of curiosity on my part he would either deflect my questions or change the subject. He gave nothing away.
‘With one hand you offer people hope,’ I ventured, ‘and with the other you destroy that hope. What do you believe? Have you lost someone too?’
He pursed his lips for a long moment until finally, in a low voice, he said, ‘Loss is the inevitable consequence of life.’
‘And now you have lost a friend,’ I said sadly. ‘You have lost Velma.’
‘London can be such a solitary place sometimes. She is a spirited woman, and in more ways than one.’
‘If you weren’t convinced of her abilities, why did you continue to see her?’ I asked.
He gave a shrug. ‘I suppose every psychical investigator wants to find a new medium, to develop and test them and to unveil them to the world.’
‘Harry, did you always intend to expose her as a fraud?’
‘Oh yes,’ he answered coldly. ‘From day one.’
*
The months rushed by as quickly as a fevered dream. The conference in Vienna came and went, but Price’s mood swings – his occasional bouts of melancholy – showed no signs of improvement.
‘Well?’ I asked, twirling into the office one morning in my new fur coat. ‘Do you like it?’
He looked up sharply from his desk. ‘No, I don’t. The taking of life, either for fashion or for pleasure, displeases me immensely.’
He returned his attention to his frantic scribbling.
‘Harry?’ I ventured. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘They want rid of us, Sarah. They want us out!’ he thundered, banging his fist on the desk. ‘They’ve had enough of us, would you believe it? We’ve outstayed our welcome!’
I had never seen him so angry. Dark patches had formed under his eyes and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.
‘Who has—?’
‘That awful meddler Conan Doyle. He and his dreadful, credulous Spiritualist friends! Who else? Just listen to this!’ And he began reading from a letter from the pages of Light.1
‘“Among other things, Harry Price repeats a story against me which he knows to be a lie, for I have already contradicted it when he told it before. The object of a page or so of the article is to hold me up to clumsy ridicule. I suggest that every possible means be adopted to get rid of Mr Price as a tenant. The very fact that he acts in such a way would, I should think, offer a legal reason. I feel strongly upon the subject – indeed my own position as President demands such an action!’”2
‘Conan Doyle wrote that? Harry, what on earth did you do to provoke such a scathing attack?’
Some weeks earlier, he explained, he had impulsively penned an article for the Psychic Review, claiming that Conan Doyle had been hoodwinked at a private seance into believing he had witnessed the materialised form of his dead mother.
‘Harry, I warned you – you can’t keep doing this! You’re making a bitter enemy of him.’
From that day, I think he knew that change was coming to Queensberry Place.
With every fraudulent act we exposed his spirits sank yet lower, pulling him down to a place where his dark moods festered. Trouble was brewing. If the cherished Laboratory was to have any hope of a long-term future, if my relationship with Price was to continue, then something needed to change.
And then, in the dusty summer of 1929, quite without warning, everything did.
* * *
Notes
1 A journal devoted to psychic and spiritual knowledge and research. Originally published in 1881 by the Eclectic Publishing Company, Light was later published by the London Spiritualist Alliance, which became the College of Psychic Studies in 1955 and still publishes it today.
2 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Mercy Phillimore, 5 September 1928.
– 9 –
GHOST VISITS TO A RECTORY
TALES OF HEADLESS
COACHMEN
AND A LONELY NUN
* * *
From Our Special Correspondent, Long Melford, Sunday
* * *
Ghostly figures of headless coachmen and a nun, an old-fashioned coach drawn by two bay horses which appears and vanishes mysteriously, and dragging footsteps in an empty room.
All these ingredients of a firstclass ghost story are awaiting investigation by psychic experts near Long Melford, Suffolk.
The scene of the ghostly visitations is the Rectory at Borley, a few miles from Long Melford.
It is a building erected on the site of a great monastery which, in the Middle Ages, was the scene of a gruesome tragedy.
The present rector, the Revd G.E. Smith, and his wife made the Rectory their residence in the face of warnings by previous occupants.
Since their arrival they have been puzzled and startled by a series of peculiar happenings which cannot be explained and which confirm the rumours they heard before moving in.
The first untoward happening was the sound of slow, dragging footsteps moving across the floor of an unoccupied room.
One night Mr Smith sat in the room, armed with a hockey stick, and waited for
the noise. Hearing the sound of feet in some kind of slippers treading on the bare boards Mr Smith lashed out with his stick at the spot where the footsteps seemed to be, but the stick whistled through the empty air and the steps continued across the room.
Then a servant girl, brought from London, suddenly gave notice after two days’ work, insisting that she had seen a nun walking in the woods behind the Rectory.
Lastly, an old-fashioned coach has been seen twice on the lawn by a servant, remaining in sight long enough for the girl to observe the colour of the horses’ coats.
This same servant also declares that she has seen a nun leaning over a gate near the house. The villagers fear the neighbourhood of the rectory after dark and will not pass it.
All these ‘visitations’ match elements of a tragedy which, according to legend, occurred at the monastery which once stood on this spot.
A groom at the monastery fell in love with a nun at a nearby convent, runs the legend, and they used to hold clandestine meetings in the woods on to which the Rectory now backs.
One day they arranged to elope and another groom had a coach waiting in the road outside the woods so that they could escape.
From this point the legend varies. Some say that the nun and her lover quarrelled and that he strangled her in the woods and was caught and beheaded, along with the other man, for his villainy.
The other version is that all three were caught in the act by the monks, and that the two men were beheaded and the nun buried alive in the walls of the monastery.
The previous Rector of Borley, now dead, often spoke of the remarkable experience he had one night when, walking along the road outside the Rectory, he heard the clatter of hoofs. Looking around, he saw to his horror an old-fashioned coach lumbering along the road, driven by two headless men.1
I had not seen the newspaper article, but it was clear from the look of annoyance on Price’s face when I returned from lunch that summer afternoon that he most certainly had. ‘Why didn’t you show me this?’ he demanded, brandishing the newspaper at me like a weapon.
‘What?’ I said defensively. But when I saw the headline staring back at me, my heart sank. This was important, the sort of news I was employed to notice. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ I said hurriedly, ‘I haven’t had time yet to prepare today’s cuttings, but I did tell you about this house – the letter! We discussed—’
He silenced me with an expression of fierce reproach. ‘Honestly, Sarah, with all the pressures we’re under at the moment and you miss a thing like this. It’s unforgivable, really it is.’
‘Harry, I most certainly did tell you about the rectory in Essex and—’
From behind me came the sound of a gentleman clearing his throat. Surprised, I spun round to see a young man of average height and no more than twenty-four standing in the corner of the room. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or humiliated. He was classically handsome, with thick dark hair and a strong jaw. And he was looking straight at me.
‘Sarah, this is Vernon Wall,’ Price said, mellowing towards me but still sounding very stern. ‘Mr Wall is a reporter with the Daily Mirror.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, noticing how steadily he met my gaze and feeling a flutter of excitement within me.
‘The pleasure’s all mine. I apologise for dropping in on you unannounced.’ He smiled warmly.
The young man with the lean face couldn’t have been standing there long, as I had only been out at lunch for an hour. But from the tense atmosphere in the room I had the strongest impression that I had interrupted something – an argument perhaps.
Price turned to our guest. ‘Now, let me be clear about this, Mr Wall. You have some acquaintance with my work, my theories, and yet you still believe I am the man to assist you?’
‘My editor said you were the only man for the job, said I was to call on you straight away. He had a jolly old name for you – the Midnight Inquirer!’
I was drawn to this stranger immediately. He had a youthful confidence and an air of good humour that suggested he was someone I could enjoy spending time with.
‘Did he now?’ Price replied crisply. ‘Did he indeed?’
‘Yes, sir – he said this whole business sounded right up your street.’
‘Right up my street?’ Price was glaring at him.
‘Yes … umm, your work. Ghost laying, I mean.’
‘Ghost laying? Good heavens, young man, is that what you think I do?’
‘Well, of course! Haunted houses and all that,’ said Wall through a cheery grin. Then, seeing Price’s horrified reaction, he added, ‘That is to say, I know you’re a scientist and that you take this seriously.’
‘Yes, extremely seriously.’
‘Oh, and I have read your paper on William Hope. That was quite a case. I must say, Mr Price, I have never seen a man’s reputation ruined so quickly. How long did you work on the investigation?’
‘Months.’
‘It must all be terribly exhausting.’
‘If the answers came easily they would hardly be worth looking for, would they?’
‘And you always catch your man, do you?’
‘Actually, they’re usually women,’ said Price. ‘Forgive me for being more than a little sceptical about your newspaper story, Mr Wall, but I have never seen any evidence that would persuade me to believe in what you would call a ghost.’
‘Well, that may be, Mr Price. But shouldn’t we approach every new case with an open mind? Frankly, until I am satisfied that the peculiar events at Borley Rectory have been investigated thoroughly, and by an expert, I refuse to submit to the fashionable assumption which condemns such experiences out of hand. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And given your speciality in this area, I’m surprised to find you so certain of your conclusions. Am I to understand that you don’t find at least some of this believable?’
‘No, you are to understand that I find none of it believable,’ Price scoffed. He scanned the newspaper article again, running his finger down the column. ‘This tale about a phantom death coach, for example. You find this report credible, sir?’
Wall shrugged. ‘That is what has been reported.’
Price eyed him haughtily. ‘The legend you mention in your article – the event concerning the monk and the nun – when did that occur?’
‘People say the murders were carried out in the fourteenth century, I believe.’
‘Then tell me, in what century were coaches first used?’
The young reporter fidgeted beneath Price’s gaze. ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea,’ he admitted. ‘And I’d be surprised if you knew the answer.’
‘But I do know the answer,’ Price shot back. ‘The first coach to be seen in England was made by Walter Rippon for the Earl of Rutland in 1599, during the reign of Elizabeth. The sixteenth century. So unless the good Earl was capable of travelling back in time in his vehicle, perhaps you can explain how exactly a nun was able to elope in a coach in the fourteenth century?’
A lengthy silence ensued, during which an expression of doubt crept across Wall’s face.
‘It’s quite ridiculous, Mr Wall. You must have your facts if you’re to be a reporter of any substance.’
‘The house is haunted,’ Wall insisted in an even more serious voice. ‘An extraordinary claim.’ Price glared at Wall. ‘Naturally, you have extraordinary evidence to back it up?’
‘I am happy to tell you, sir, that everything I witnessed in that house was extraordinary by my standards, if not your own.’
‘My standards, Mr Wall, are the standards of science. They are universal. I deal in facts.’
‘Then you shall have them all,’ Wall said gravely. ‘The facts of the affair.’
I watched as the young reporter reached into his coat pocket and produced some folded sheets of paper. ‘This letter reached our newspaper a few days ago from the Reverend Eric Smith, the Rector of Borley. After reading it, my editor rushed me out there to get the full story – to
speak to the rector and his wife and to find out what I could from the locals.’
Price scrutinised our visitor moodily with perhaps with a trace of envy.
‘My full report on what I observed there will appear in tomorrow’s edition. It’s a quiet, mournful little place perched on a small hill at the top of the Stour Valley, just on the border between Suffolk and Essex.’
‘Sounds perfectly lovely,’ I said.
Regarding me darkly from beneath gathered brows, Wall said in a low voice, ‘Believe me, Miss Grey, there is nothing lovely about it.’
‘That part of England is steeped in superstition,’ Price interrupted him. ‘The border between Essex and Suffolk has a long history of ghost stories: anachronistic legends of phantom horse-drawn carriages and the like.’
‘And take my word for it, they are apt to the location,’ said Wall. ‘I found the Rectory in a neglected garden choked with weeds, a rambling red-brick monstrosity of a house full of shadows. The place was so quiet, so still.’ He paused and I swear I glimpsed a shudder run through him. ‘So utterly cold.’
‘Cold?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘But it’s summertime!’
Wall looked at me. ‘Yes, I know that, Miss Grey.’ His gaze fell on the paper in his hand. ‘I had read this letter,’ he continued, ‘but I did not think for a moment any word of it could be true. Not until I saw it myself.’ His alert gaze slackened, roaming the middle distance. Whatever ‘it’ was, he was seeing it again now.
It was clearly unwelcome news to Price that he was not the sole repository of unusual stories, but as he leaned back against the nearest workbench, watching the reporter carefully, he did at least seem interested. He produced some tobacco paper and proceeded to roll and light a cigarette, before eventually pointing at the letter in Wall’s hand and saying, ‘Let’s hear it then!’
